Robert Hudson
An Olde Story

Here's an old story from an 1859 newspaper.

SCRAMBLING FOR BABIES.-- Some time ago there was a dancing party
given near Weaverville, California. Most of the ladies present
had little babies, whose noisy perversity required too much
attention to allow the mothers to enjoy the dance. A number of
gallant young men volunteered to watch the young ones while the
parents engaged in a "break-down." No sooner had the women left
the babies in charge of the mischeivous fellows than they stripped 
the infants, changed clothes, and gave to one the apparel of
another. The dance over it was time to go home, and the mothers
hurriedly took each a baby, in the dress of her own, and started,
some to their homes, ten or fifteen miles off, and were far on
their way before daylight. But the day following there was a
prodigious row in the settlement. Mothers discovered that a
single day had changed the sex of their babies; observation
disclosed startling phenomena, and then commenced some of the
tallest female pedestrianism; living miles apart it required two
days to unmix the babies, and as many months to restore their
naturally sweet dispositions. To this day it is unsafe for any
of the baby mixers to venture within the territory. [Troy Times,
July 10, 1859]